B.J. Novak & Mindy Kaling Trade Barbs In His New Book Trailer

B.J. Novak & Mindy Kaling Trade Barbs In His New Book Trailer

In the new trailer for One More Thing, B.J. Novak's upcoming collection of short stories, Mindy Kaling asks an ever-important question: "Does the world need more books?" Perhaps we should defer to Jenny Slate, who once aptly put it, "Just read a frickin' Dilbert and go to sleep."

No argument there. But, thanks to Novak and Kaling's enduringly bittersweet on-screen chemistry, you'll probably give One More Thing a chance when it hits shelves on February 4. If the trailer's any indication, it'll be funny, weird, and sweetly self-reflexive.

No stranger to the sense of self-importance that writing a book can bring, Novak locates the smugness of authorship — where else? — in the smoky cafés of Paris. He amps up the Frenchness as much as possible with references to Camus and Sartre, a musette accordion soundtrack, and a black-and-white homage to New Wave cinema. He only wants to impress literary darling Kaling, whose own book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, appears in Europe as Is It Existentially Possible That The World Hangs Out In My Absence?

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After he brings her a finished copy, Novak notes that one of his stories was published in The New Yorker (true fact), which Kaling calls "garbage for the American masses." Shots fired! That's just asking for critic Lee Siegel to break his whole "no negative reviews" rule.